This invention relates to a fuel combustion apparatus of the vaporizing type wherein fuel is heated and vaporized within a fuel injector and then fed to a burner via a nozzle for combustion, and more particularly to a device and method for removing tar produced within the fuel injector.
While kerosene is being vaporized within a fuel injector of a conventional fuel combustion apparatus of the vaporizing type during combustion, kerosene is reduced slowly into tar due to polymerization of molecules, microscopic residues (impurities), etc. at a vaporizing temperature (within a range of about 150.degree. to about 280.degree. C.) and the growth of tar proceeds steadily within the fuel injector and a vaporizing core as combustion time goes on. The amount of the tar growth is somewhat different depending upon the internal temperature of the fuel injector, the manner in which the kerosene is vaporized and the temperature rises in the kerosene. However, the growth of tar is unavoidable.
As the tar is attached and deposited in the fuel injector and the vaporizing core, a passage for the vaporized kerosene is choked gradually with the tar, so that the proportion of the vaporized oil gas decreases and the rate of combustion slows down, causing a faulty combustion state and eventually shortening the life of the combustion apparatus. A solution to the problem is to exchange components of the fuel injector and the stabilizer every two or three years but this solution is unsatisfactory and not practical.